


An Understanding

by mathildia



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Killy Milly BroTP, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 12:34:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14213268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mathildia/pseuds/mathildia
Summary: “No.” She interrupts him, putting her hand sharply down on his. “I can’t. I can’t do any of these things you speak about. I have a son. A husband.”He looks into her eyes. “And how is that working out?”A gay pirate rescues and lonely lesbian and they become best gay pirate friends.





	An Understanding

You must understand that Captain Jones is a mask. A means to an end. A way to get a job done. And a part - perhaps all - of Captain Jones's costume is the braggadocio. The part of the brigand. Like boasting of his prowess, crowing about how many men’s wives he’s had is a cloud of obfuscation. A useful one. A lot of kingdoms will still hang a man for what he prefers.

Some places do even worse. 

Care must be taken and, it’s a simple matter of receiving the attentions of the tavern whores and wenches, of drinking and gambling and laughing, and knowing that what is done in public doesn’t need to be done in private.

In private even the lowest born lady will take a coin for her trouble with the excuse that a little too much merriment has overcome him. Some of the cannier whores will understand exactly what this is, and often then, for a price, will tell him of another tavern, with a private back room, for those with different tastes. 

He gets by, is all. He knows how to keep circumspect. 

And there were always the princes. Princes and dukes. Never kings. Kings have too much power. Enough power to lock up a wing of their castle and not be questioned about what goes on in there. Kings have the power to keep their secrets. But princes need to make allegiances, cement their grasp on power. Avoid scandal. No one will keep a tryst secret like a prince en route to his wedding. Especially one who has been shown a pleasure he never dreamed of. 

 

When he sees her in the tavern he sees something. It’s hard to say that he knew right away. But he has been many places. Seen all kinds of folk. 

And he wonders how would his life have been if he hadn’t been at sea. If he hadn’t found Neverland, found his way to the person he is. If he had been trapped, married to coward, bringing up a child in a village full of small minded fools. 

And he knows, he knows, he has to take her away from all this.

He has to take her somewhere she can be a queen. 

It takes a while but eventually she trusts him and then he tells her about other lands, about silk and a spices about dry heat and bright jewels. About a world where the rules are not the same.

“And truly,” he says, leaning in, whispering close, “I have never seen anyone the serving girls and pretty maids are more happy to see than a pirate queen." 

She looks up at him, and her pupils are big and black, her cheeks are pink and it might be the drink. It might not.

“Why did you say that?”

“What?”

“About the maids. The pretty maids.”

There’s no one near them in the tavern. The candles are burning low. He swallows. This is the kind of place where he knows he needs to be careful. This is the kind of place where they throw men like him into the fires and call them faggots. 

War makes people cruel. 

He says, “When I was young I was indentured to a ship of privateers. As I grew up I developed the kind of looks that meant there were other ways to earn my keep than scrubbing the decks. I had my brother with me and he fought to save me from this fate but, what he never knew was, I didn’t want saving. I dreamed about it. About the men and how they would use me the way they threatened and leered. But, because of my brother and his honour, I never did what they asked. In fact, every time one of the ship’s men cornered me and tried to touch me or kiss me or offered lighter duties if he could take me to bed, I pretended to be horrified. But I wasn’t. I was intrigued.”

She frowns at him. The low light making deep shadows on her face. “But you were just a boy.”

He takes a long drink of the rum in front of him. It’s good. Strong and sweet. “Aye. And my brother was right to protect me. When we found ourselves in the King’s Navy I did my best to repay him by being the truest, purest man I could. But it was not the real me. It took a strange land and a demon and a misadventure that ended in his death to show me that. But now, I know who I am and what I am and if I can help you.”

“No.” She interrupts him, putting her hand sharply down on his. “I can’t. I can’t do any of these things you speak about. I have a son. A husband.”

He looks into her eyes. “And how is that working out?”

*

 

_Seven Years Later_

 

“Atlantis,” he says to her, eyes glittering. “They say the women are angels and the men beasts.”

She laughs. “And what if I want a beast.”

He shrugs. “Well there’s always one that bucks the trend, Captain.”

She looks happy. She hasn’t been, since that business with Circe, which broke her heart. But she’s so damn reckless when it comes to beautiful women. And he warned her. He had. He barely got her out of there alive.

He’d despair, except, she does the same for him. 

“You know, Captain,” she’d said as she dabbed at his bruises with a wash cloth soaked in witch hazel. Fabian had not treated Hook gently, it appeared. “It’s a rare man who tries to bed a giant no matter how drunk he is.”

“He was not a giant,” Hook spat, through a split lip, “he was just a tall man with delusions of grandeur.”

“Who turned out to be rather unfriendly.”

“Oh I don’t know.” Hook flashes an eyebrow. “Not all of this was his idea.”

Milah makes a scoffing noise and throws the washcloth down on his bare chest. “I’ve told you before, I am not playing nursemaid on self inflicted injuries.”

“Oh come on, love.” He smiles knowingly. “How many times have you nearly drowned because a mermaid was so comely you forgot about breathing?”

“I didn’t exactly nearly drown...” She pauses. “Okay. Twice.”

They are as bad as each other, he thinks, as Atlantic draws nearer, glittering in the sunshine. 

They have plans, of course, life is not one long holiday romance. In Atlantis there is a city ruled dowager duchess, who has a casket of jewels that will keep them both in leather breeches for months, and he has discovered there are few members of the idle rich that can’t be seduced by one or other, or on one memorable occasion, both of them. 

*

 

_Three days later_

 

The duchess’s torturer is a old man, spry and nasty and without a doubt the most brutal Killian has ever come across. 

He’s naked, strapped to table, legs spread and there are fresh burns, thin little lines, all the way up his inner thigh and almost at his dick. Each one has been made by this man with a kind of finnicky precision about his work that means that Killian is sure he will have the neatest line of scars anyone has ever seen. 

If he survives this, that is. 

Each burn has been seared into his skin with an accompanying shout from the duchess herself of, “Where are my fucking jewels, filth?” As she stalks around the dungeon.

And Killian, in response, has only yelled in pain and then choked that he doesn’t know. He doesn’t. Milah took them while he ran the distraction. She was meant to come back and unchain him from the Duchess’s bed but she didn’t. 

If he cranes his head he can see the torturer readying something else. A pair of pliers he’s heating in the brasier. 

“Please,” he manages, turning to the Duchess. “Please, truly, I do not know.”

She prowls towards him. She rules this city. There’s no way he can escape her. She gets close and bends over him, touching his bruised mouth. He hisses. “You were in the room. You saw who took them.”

Before he can reply to her there is a sudden sound as loud as as a thunderstorm suddenly erupting in the corridor outside. So loud that for a moment that sound is the entire world. 

It’s dynamite blowing up the corridor. 

It's her. 

The wooden doors are splintering, blowing inwards. As the dust clears there, standing in the ruined doorway is Milah, musket cocked and half a dozen of his burliest men at her back. She grins at him. “You know when you set off on a journey and you can’t shift that feeling you’ve forgotten something.”

**Author's Note:**

> I do hope to write more chapters for this. I really do.


End file.
